


Structured Deception

by Corycides



Series: Pygmalion [1]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:36:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if it had been Charlie captured instead of Danny? Would she have fared any differently as Monroe's guest</p>
            </blockquote>





	Structured Deception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thursday (Notation)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notation/gifts).



> A second dark Valentine's coda to The Perceived Path: http://archiveofourown.org/works/653606.

The guards dragged Charlie into the office and forced her struggling to her knees. It took two of them, gloved hands clenched on her bony shoulders, to hold her in place. Behind his desk Monroe sighed and steepled his fingers together, cuffs sliding back from his wrists.

'Charlotte,' he said. 'Trying to escape again? I thought we'd sorted this out last time.'

He'd broken her nose. The memory of that dry pop made her face ache with phantom pain. He'd set it for her to, kneeling on her chest and wrenching it back into place as she screamed through a mouth of blood and snot. The time before it had been a beating, professionally administered by a hot-eyed Strausser. She got the point, each time it was going to get worse.

Charlie wanted to brave and spit her defiance at him, tell him he didn't scare her and he could do his worst. Only he did. A broken nose and she was a coward. Dad would be ashamed of her. Danny would be ashamed. It didn't make a difference. She licked her lips and looked down at her knees, shoulders slumping.

'I want to go home,' she said, sounding more sullen than demanding.

The scrape of wooden chair legs against the floor made her cringe. Bass walked around and stood in front of her. She chewed the inside of her cheek and refused to look up from the tight laces of his polished black boots. A hand touched her head gently, stroking muddy hair back from her face.

'I don't know why you keep making me do this, Charlotte,' he said. 'I get no pleasure from hurting you.'

She looked up at him and twisted her mouth into a bitter smile. 'Then don't?'

He smiled back. Until she'd got here, Charlie had only the vaguest idea of what President Monroe looked like. By the time posters and proclamations got to their border back-water town they'd been crumpled and reprinted and smudged until he could have been anyone. She'd vaguely expected monster, someone as twisted physically as he was in other ways. 

It was somehow worse that he was normal-looking. Attractive even. It felt dirty to admit it, but if he'd come through town before all this she'd have been giggling with the other women over his eyes and shoulders.

Monroe crouched down in front of her and cupped her chin in his hand. 'But how else are you going to learn, Charlotte? You can't run away from me.'

Maybe, but she had to try. A Matheson wouldn't let a broken nose break them.

**************

She was done.

The realisation hit her like a cracked bone as she rolled onto her side and vomited up a stringy mess of bile and water. Once upon a time she'd thought she was brave and capable and could handle anything the world threw at her. Then they brought her and she'd realised she wasn't.

She rested her forehead on the cold stone floor, shivering and coughing in ragged, chest-scratching bursts. Her wrists ached – the fingers of her left hand twitching like a half-dead bug when she tried to move them – and every breath made her lungs cramp up against aching ribs. There was nothing left to fight with.

Strausser waited until she finished spitting up bile, then he gestured to the guards who yanked their ropes tight. The shackles around her wrists and ankles rubbed as they pulled her out, spread-eagling her flat to the floor. It had been cold early, but Charlie hardly felt it now.

'I would have used knives,' Strausser remarked, going down on one knee next to her. He stroked her face with rough fingers and inclined his head like it was a confidence. 'Knives get me off and scars are a lesson you never forget. But we can't alarm your mama too much can we?'

He dropped the wet square of silk over her face. It clung, sucking at her lips and nose as she tried to breathe through it. Charlie was shaking, her heartbeat hammering at her ears, because it was only going to get worse.

Ice cold water splashed onto her face. It filled her mouth and nose, running down into her ears, and she coughed and spluttered but couldn't get any air past the wet seal of silk. The fabric clogged against her tongue as she choked. Darkness ate at the corners of her mind, dragging her down. She let it with a passing feeling of relief.

'Strausser!' a voice roared and the water stopped pouring into Charlie's face. 

The ropes went slack too, but this time she couldn't muster the energy to roll over and spit up stagnant water from her lungs. Rough fingers peeled the square of silk off her face and slapped her cheeks hard enough to sting.

It roused her enough to groan in protest and push at the hands – his hands. Monroe, face tight and furious, dragged her up onto her knees and pushed her head down. He thumped her back until she started to spew again. 

'You told me to scare her, sir,' Strausser said, his creepy self-possession sliding down into the servile tone he always donned around Monroe. 'But not hurt her too much. I was just-'

Monroe left Charlie coughing on the floor and grabbed Strausser by the jacket, slamming the other man back into the wall. 'You went too far,' Monroe said, leaning in too close. 'I don't want her dead or broken. Now get out of here, before I give you a chance to experience how much it doesn't hurt.

He let go and Strausser slid back down from his toes. Charlie wiped her mouth on her sleeve and watched as his hands tidied his jacket fastidiously. 'Sir. My apologies.'

The calm fractured as he turned to look at his mean, viciousness bleeding up through the cracks. After seeing him embarrassed Charlie didn't expect they'd enjoy the rest of the night. She rubbed her bloody, aching wrists and couldn't bring herself to car.

While Strausser chivvied his men out of the room, Monroe came back over to Charlie. He went to touch her shoulder and she flinched away from him – shrivelling inside at being so weak. Monroe ignored her trying to crawl away and pulled her up to her feet. Her legs wobbled under her, boneless as boiled roots, and she had to cling to him to stay up.

'He went too far, Charlie,' he told her, putting a warm arm around her waist. 'I didn't tell him to do this. You believe me right?'

She nodded, because what else could she do?

'Don't make me hurt you again, Charlie,' he said. 'Don't make me hurt Rachel. Promise me you won't try to escape?'

Since she'd already nodded once, there didn't see to be anything to do but do it again.

Monroe hugged her, warm arms against cold skin, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder. At some point she realised she wasn't shaking, she was sobbing. It wouldn't stop so she clung to Monroe, crying up gallon of water into his shirt, until she was too exhausted to stay upright. He carried her to her room and tucked her in like she was a child.

 

**********

The wooden practice blade skimmed in under Charlie's elbow and thumped off her ribs. Ow. She yelped and dropped her short sword, nearly tripping over it as it tangled around her feet.

'Elbow. In,' Monroe said. He stepped back and watched her, shaking his head. 'Didn't anyone in that town think teaching you to fight was a good idea.'

Charlie bent over to grab the sword. 'The militia don't exactly like us fighting back.'

'Balls,' he said. 'We don't like you shooting us when we're going about our business, if you want to defend yourselves against bandits? All for that.'

'With what?' she asked, blowing her hair out of her face and shuffling her feet into place. 'We had a couple of bows and a guy whose weapon of choice was a DOS attack. And none of knew what meant.'

'Swords, spears, traps,' Monroe said. He knocked his knuckles against his temple. 'Your wits.'

'Dad said it was better to just go along,' Charlie said. 'Then nobody got hurt.'

Monroe didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Charlie already knew what he'd think of that philosophy. She was the one who wasn't sure. 

With a sigh he tucked the practice-sword under his arm and came over to adjust her stance – shifting her elbows and kicking her feet a few more inches apart. His hands gripped her hips as he angled her and Charlie was caught by surprise when she noticed how good he smelled – sweat and tea and something dry and spicy. She remembered it from crying on his shoulder, but it hadn't made heat roll between her thighs then.

Flustered she shifted away from him, trying to ignore the unwelcome new fold of her brain. 

'I'm better with a bow,' she said, rubbing her hand over the back of her neck. 'Can't we practice that?'

***********

Rachel fussed over Charlie's split knuckles, rubbing stinging ointment in with careful fingers. It was one of the few things with her mother that did feel right to Charlie. The rest of the time it was strange, strained. Like watching someone you love and not recognising them.

'I'm so sorry, Charlie,' Rachel said, hiding behind her long hair. Her hands flexed around Charlie's, squeezing uncomfortably. 'He's doing this to punish me.'

Maybe. Charlie supposed that was right. Only she'd punched him, getting a surprise left through his guard that knocked him a back a step. She'd thought he was going to kill her, but he'd spat blood, laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. 'Like that,' he'd said, looking deeply satisfied. 'Just like that, Charlie.'

'He says we should know how to fight by now,' Charlie said, wriggling her fingers till Rachel stopped crushing them. 'He thinks he's doing me a favour.'

Rachel snorted. 'He would. Force is all he understands.'

'That's not fair,' Charlie protested. 'He's not like that.'

Silence for a second and Rachel let Charlie's hands go. 'He's not? Charlie, sweetheart, he broke your nose.'

'I disobeyed,' Charlie said, looking away. She rubbed her cheekbone with her thumb, remembering the hurt. 'There were consequences. That's discipline.'

'No,' Rachel snapped. She grabbed Charlie's chin and pulled her head up, shaking her. 'It's cruel, it's torture. Charlie, listen to me. He's evil. He killed your Dad.'

'That was a mistake. He didn't want that to happen,' Charlie said. She wasn't sure she meant it. They were Monroe's words, reshaped for her mouth. She just couldn't stop them coming out. 

'He stopped me coming back to you,' Rachel said, her cool composure fracturing. 'He kept me prisoner, Charlie.'

That still hurt. Seven years of thinking her mother was dead, of being trapped because no-one else could take care of Danny. That was Charlie's job.

'Only because he thinks you have something to do with the Blackout,' she said, her voice weaker. 'He wouldn't otherwise, you were friends. I'll talk to him, once he realises it wasn't anything you knew -'

Rachel shook her again. 'Do you think he'll listen to you? Do you think you're special to him, Charlie? You're not special.'

The door creaked and boots clicked on the wooden floor. 'That's an awful thing to say to your daughter, Rachel,' Monroe said dryly. 'Is that why you left? She wasn't special enough.'

Habit made Charlie start to get up – you didn't sit with the President unless he told you that you could – but Rachel dragged her back down, twisting her fingers in her shirt. 'Don't listen to him, Charlie. He's trying to use you to hurt me, so that I'll tell him what he wants.'

Something cold seeded under Charlie's ribs. She put her hands over Rachel's, prying them loose. 'Except, you can't tell him what he wants. Right? You don't know anything about it?'

'Charlie,' Monroe said, pulling her hair back over her shoulder. 'Why don't you go back to your quarters. I need to talk to Rachel.'

Charlie didn't move. 'Mom?' she said, staring at Rachel like she could see the truth in her suddenly composed, quiet face. 'Rachel. He's mistaken isn't he, you don't know anything.'

'Of course not,' Rachel said, voice calm and glassy. Impenetrable. 'I was a stay-at-home Mom, your Dad taught Math.'

Hard fingers squeezed her shoulder, pressing down on her collarbone till it creaked. Monroe didn't like to repeat himself. Charlie got up reluctantly and left, pausing in the hallway outside. No guards waited in the hall to show her back to her quarters. She could....run?

The thought of leaving felt distant, not nearly as immediate as the idea of how disappointed Monroe would be in her. She'd promised. Instead she reached back and held the door open a crack, pressing her ear close to listen.

'What are you doing, Bass?' Rachel asked. It seemed weird to Charlie, the idea of him having a first name. Of people using it. 'You promised me, you wouldn't hurt Charlie if I told what you wanted to know.'

The edge of the door dug into Charlie's cheek as she pressed closer. Her fingers flexed against the wood, knuckles pressing against the skin. The cold in her stomach had swelled to a sick ball that pushed against her throat.

'Well, you haven't been telling me what I want to know. Just dribs and drabs, hints,' Monroe said. 'Nothing concrete. Besides, I'm not the one lying to Charlie.'

'There's nothing to you but lies.'

'Did you and Ben know the power was going to go off, Rachel,' Monroe snapped, the cutting edge of his voice making Charlie jump all the way out in the hall.

'Yes,' Rachel admitted in a small voice. 'Are you happy? We knew, and I know how to turn it back on. So leave my daughter alone, Bass, or I swear to God I'll find a way to give it to Georgia.'

Charlie stepped back from the door, back-pedalling across the room until her shoulders hit the wall. She slid down the wall until her backside hit the floor and closed her eyes. It had been a long time ago, but she could still remember the days after the Blackout. Fires. People screaming. Hiding in abandoned houses and under bushes, her Mom pressing her hands over her ears so she'd not hear the screaming. She'd heard anyhow.

And afterwards. Larry Tate screaming until his voice broke while they cut his hand off with no painkillers and no hospital after he cut his fingers. Or Bethie, only 5 years old and Danny's best friend, dying as her throat swelled shut because she was allergic to something and they didn't know what.

That was down to her family. To the Dad who told her it was wrong to fight and the Mom who called Monroe a liar. When he was the only who hadn't lied. Charlie curled over her knees, pressing her forehead to the convenient shelf of bone, and waited for Monroe to come out.

*******

The narrow room was hot and smelt of heat and blood. Charlie tried to breath through her mouth as Strausser strapped her arms flat to the chair. She was sweating, trickling damp under her arms and down her back. 

He lifted the brand out of the fire and turned it, checking the metal was evenly cherry red. 'Hold still,' he told her. 'If you move too much, the edges blur.'

One gloved hand clamped her forearm, holding it down, and Strausser pressed the brand to the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. Despite her determination to be brave, Charlie screamed and bucked against the restraints. The burn throbbed, pain crawling down into her fingers and up towards her elbow. She clenched her hand, nails digging into the skin, and held her breath – even though Strausser had told her not to.

It really didn't that long. She'd seen the others down. Sizzle, press and go. It felt like minutes, though, before Strausser lifted the brand. Chunks and shreds of skin came with it, cooking against the hot metal. He scraped it off on the edge of the brazier and stuck it in the fire to sizzle.

Charlie slumped back sweating and breathing noisily through her nose. Her arm hurt worse now, stinging as the air scraped it, but a raw, red M blazed against her pale skin. Strausser unbuckled the straps and squeezed her shoulder.

'Welcome to the Militia, Recruit Matheson,' he said. Somehow he managed to refrain from making that creepy.

'Thank you,' Charlie muttered. While the next recruit took their place in the chair, she shuffled over to grab her new uniform and let the businesslike medic wrap a bleached and boiled strip of frayed cotton over her arm. 

Outside she leant against a wall, shying away from the crowd changing their jackets and comparing brands. She hugged her arm, pressing her fingers in just under the burn. After today she was Monroe's – it was written in her actual skin. Her Dad would have-

'Congratulations, Matheson,' Marks said, nudging her shoulder. 'You did good.'

'She cried!' Hopkins protested, face so pale his freckles looked like char marks. 

'You pissed yourself,' Marks parried. 'I know I'd rather clean up Matheson's sniffles.'

They dragged her off the wall, suddenly relaxed now that she was officially one of them, and dragged her with them back to the barracks. They had a bottle of black market whisky and something to celebrate.

So did she.

*******

Hopkins had been a liar. He knelt on the floor, arms cuffed and body bow-string taut with defiance, and sobbed in wet, cracking heaves. Both his arms were broken and eye was swollen shut and out like a blood-blister. Charlie pressed a wad of tissues against her bloody side – elbow in, she had to remember that – and stared at him.

'Why?' she asked eventually.

In the background Monroe was yelling at his guards and at Neville. Hopkins glanced that way and then at Charlie, his face twisting as he spat at her feet. 'It's what I came here to do,' he said. 'The militia destroyed my family, brought me here. I was going to destroy it. I was going to finally put that bastard in the ground. What I can't believe is that you tried to stop me.'

Charlie took a step forwards. 'President Monroe gave you a second chance, Hopkins. Your parents were traitors.'

'So was your uncle,' Hopkins said, smirking around bloody teeth. 'Maybe we aren't that different.'

No. Charlie kicked him in the chest and followed him down, pinning him with her arm across his throat and her knees on his shoulders. She pushed down hard, cutting off his air, and watched him flail and choke. Pink spread between his freckles and his good eye bulged.

'I'm nothing like you,' she spat. 'The militia – President Monroe – is going to bring the power back. You'd jeopardise that because your Rebel parents were killed attacking us. Like that's our fault?'

Hopkins eye rolled back in his head and his heels thumped against the tiles. He was going to die, Charlie realised, and she couldn't make herself stop. Just in case someone thought he was right, that they weren't that different.

'Charlie! That's enough.' Monroe scruffed her like a cat and yanked her off Hopkins body. She squirmed resentfully but backed off, retreating a couple of steps.

The guards dragged Hopkins back to his knees, ignoring his pained wheezing. Where her arm had been a bruise was flowering on his throat. He coughed and angled his head so he stare at Monroe.

'You think I'm the only one...who hates you?' he got out. 'I'm just...the first.'

Monroe reached down and unclipped his thigh holster, drawing his gun. He pressed the muzzle under Hopkins chin, pushing his head back. Hopkins closed his eye and held his breath and Monroe shot him. The gun barked and the back of Hopkins' head exploded, ginger hair and skull splattering over the floor.

A chunk hit Charlie's foot. She bit back a squeak and kicked it off, waiting to feel...something. It didn't happen.

'Clean up in here,' Monroe told the guards curtly. 'Do it yourselves, maybe next time you'll be more careful. Matheson!'

She looked up and he crooked a finger at her to follow him as he stalked out of the room. Charlie sighed – getting a commiserating nod from a guard – and followed him through the halls to his private set of rooms. 

'I appreciate your enthusiasm,' he said, closing the doors behind him. 'But if I want someone dead, I'll tell you.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Charlie said. 'It was just...Hopkins was my friend, and he betrayed you. I was angry.'

'And now,' Monroe asked, holding out his hand. The same hand that had just blown Hopkins' brains out. Charlie laid her fingers in his palm and let her pull her close, his other hand curling around her hip.

'Nothing,' Charlie admitted, frowning. She reached up and touched his cheek, skimming jus under the slice raw, scabbed skin from Hopkins' knife. 'He stopped being my friend when he turned on us. You're all that matters.'

His eyes kindled with heat and he pulled her closer, body pressed against his. Their first kiss wasn't gentle – the militia wasn't gentle though, so that was OK. She leaned into him, pressing against him like he was the only solid thing in the room. It did feel like that sometimes.

A knock on the door and Major Baker's discreet, 'Strausser is back, sir,' interrupted them. Monroe muttered something obscene against Charlie's hair, making her giggle. He set her back a step and stood up to tug his jacket straight. 

'Send him in.'

The door creaked open and Strausser strode in. He registered Charlie, but ignored her. All his attention was on Monroe as he gave him the pendant. The silvery octagonal teardrop glittered as Monroe held it up. It had been her Dad's, but Charlie had never seen it. He hid it like he hid everything else from them.

Anxiety about Danny gnawed at her, but she dug her thumb into her healing brand and held her tongue. They would mention if they had killed him, she told herself. Danny would be OK – Miles would take care of him. From what Monroe said about her uncle, the only place Danny would be safer was here.

And that was where they were coming.


End file.
